At the barricades again: boomers fight age prejudice

Everyone who reads this article is on a journey to old age. It is the golden thread - the one common denominator - that runs through our lives.

In the late 1960s in America and Australia, the civil rights movement won major battles over race and sex prejudice. I remember Dr Martin Luther King's 'I have a Dream' speech. Its cadence was the drumbeat of emancipation.

Indigenous Australians were allowed to vote; in America, black people were no longer consigned to the back of the bus and women broke the chains of a sexual apartheid that kept them silent and shackled to the kitchen.

But who would have thought that members of the boomer generation, who fought to end social injustice in the 1960s, would today suffer the humiliation of age prejudice?

As a nation are we forever doomed to ostracise our most experienced workers because of their birthdate? So that today, managers and staff in there 30s and 40s, will suffer the same fate as their parents, ad infinitum?

The recent release of the 2011 census data shows that Australians are getting older, with the median Australian now aged 37.3 years - a sharp rise from 32.4 years in 1991. The proportion of Australians who are 65+ has grown from 11.3 per cent in 1991 to 13.8 per cent in 2011.

We are growing older but not wiser.

Unfortunately large sectors of the HR industry still work on the outdated premise that older people are 'experienced but high risk and inefficient'. Whereas younger people are 'inexperienced and compliant'. This insults both older and younger workers or job seekers.

The over all passivity of recruiters to the largest and most politically damaging attack on their efficacy and brand is baffling. They talk the talk but do little else.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions in a recent submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission, called on employers to provide more flexible working hours for older workers.

Currently, the right to flexible working arrangements such as shorter hours, days off or early or late starts, is restricted to parents of preschool children and those who care for a disabled person aged under 16.

It is estimated that about 50 percent of the two million boomers will continue to work past 65 but what sort of future awaits them?

In a global economy where billions of dollars of work and trades are done over the Internet every day and night, why can't older employees work from home one day a week? Why can't a mature age worker spend a day or two caring for his or her ageing mother or father at home rather than in a retirement village?

Why can't college and university students work as juniors in their intended career and attend day classes rather than having to flip burgers and conform to a work/study roster that defies logic?

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently called on employers to consider the sound business case of employing mature-aged workers.

The benefits include loyalty, less turnover or sick days. Older workers bring experience, skills, mentorship potential, emotional maturity, good communication skills and corporate memory.

According to the Australian Government report, Realising the Economic Potential of Senior Australians, unemployed or under employed older people want to work longer. Up to 40 per cent of the 2 million boomers now working fulltime and part time will work past 65.

Yet we are living in an economy where we hear frequent complaints from employers about skills shortages, and constant calls to government to bring in more skilled immigrant workers. Older workers and job seekers are an untapped resource – they are a mine of knowledge and experience.

Western Australia recently removed the age limit at which workers compensation covered older workers. Western Australia understands that mature workers provide valuable years of experience and should be encouraged to continue working to contribute this experience to their work place.

We know that the Australian manufacturing industry is going to be hit hard by early retirement with approximately 260, 000 workers leaving the industry before they reach 65 with an average retirement age of 56.4.

Health care, social assistance workers – including aged care workers - and construction workers are also more likely to move out of the labour force before reaching the pension age (ABS 2010).

A leader in ageing workplace reform, Wayne Bishop, from Activetics Pty in Melbourne, said most employers were unprepared for the skills shortages and boomer exits.

"Few businesses have items relating to ageing workforce in their business plans. Even less had a clear understanding of the retirement intentions of their mature cohort."

Population ageing is one of the major social and economic challenges of the 21st century. Over the next 40 years the number of people in Australia aged between 65 and 84 will more than double, and those 86 and above will quadruple.

But the boomers will also need training and educating too – and most especially in the area of financial literacy.

A recent report by Australian National University of 3500 people found that half of the post war generation surveyed had not monitored their superannuation and investment accounts over the last five years.

Australia needs to tap in to experience and wisdom that maturing brings. A productive life is a happy life and we will all benefit.